Morning Briefing

"Spending to improve health in developing countries has continued to grow during the three-year economic downturn, although at only half the blistering pace it did a decade ago," according to a report (.pdf) by researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the Washington Post reports (Brown, 12/14). "The report details the trends in development assistance for health between 1990 and 2009 from aid agencies and governments in 23 developed countries, multilateral institutions such as the [WHO], and hundreds of non-profit groups and charities with preliminary estimates for 2010 and 2011," an IHME press release states (12/14). "Overall, spending on malaria and child health problems has grown more rapidly in the past few years than spending on AIDS and tuberculosis," according to the report, the Washington Post notes (12/14).